War in Sudan's Darfur 'is over'

Source: BBC News

The six-year war between forces loyal to Sudan's government and rebels in Darfur has effectively ended, the UN's military commander in the region says.

General Martin Agwai, who is leaving his post this week, said the vicious fighting of earlier years had subsided as rebel groups split into factions.

He says the region now suffers more from low-level disputes and banditry.

The UN says 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur, but the Sudanese government puts the figure at 10,000.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8224424.stm

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Not quite sure whether or not to believe this. :shrug:

K&R

I mean, consider this:

The US Civil War was a horrible thing. It should have been avoided. Barring that, it should have ended as quickly as possible. If that meant having Lincoln unilaterally back down and welcome the Southern states back into the fold, allowing them to keep their slaves as slaves and to adjust some of the economic policies, well, that would be something to celebrate.

When WWII was de facto ended in Western Europe -- France laid down its arms, and the most that was happening west of Belorussia was the occasional partisan operation -- the proper thing to do would have been end it once and for all. Something to celebrate.

No, war is hell, war is always regrettable, but sometimes there are things that are greater hells and more regrettable.

So it may be in Darfur. The Darfuris had a variety of reasons for what they did. In some cases, it was tribal, a simple cultural dispute; in other cases, it was religious, since much of the outbreak corresponded to an imposition of a foreign religious code on the non-Arab Darfuris; in other cases, it was over control of resources, be it land, water, or oil. If the government wins, it means that the Darfuris have lost the culture war, will have a foreign version of shari'a imposed on them, and will not have control over their resources.

Now, the Darfur conflict spiralled downward in intensity about a year ago. As that occurred, the South Sudan conflict, dormant and regulated by a peace treaty that seems to be ignored by nearly everybody outside of Sudan, ratcheted up a bit. Will we see that increase as the deadline nears for the vote on autonomy?

...without widespread killing - I will not believe this.

It may not be called war, but the battle will continue to rage there for another generation or two.

IIRC, Ijaz was going to hand over Osama bin Laden if Clinton agreed to sell arms to Darfur (so Darfur could kill more people of course).

Clinton checked it out and determined Ijaz had nothing to do with the government there and would not be able to deliver anyway.

RepubliCONs of course lied lied and lied that Clinton had let bin Laden slip through Clinton's fingers and did nothing. All lies.

Ijaz then went to work for FOX news.

A longer summary of this was researched and printed in Al Frankin's book about Lying Liars and...

So, now someone wants us to think it's over... again.

If not, what does it really matter?

Nope, not "over", just time out to reload.

That area may never recover in our lifetimes.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=33915

UN-AU Darfur force chief quits job, hails mission

KHARTOUM - The outgoing head of the UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur defended his soldiers against criticism of their effectiveness, insisting they have ended the massacres that long plagued the Sudanese region.

"I have achieved results," Rodolphe Adada said.

"The main result is the end of massacres in Darfur," he said, as he prepared to step down as head of the world's biggest peacekeeping operation.

Some critics claimed that the joint United Nations-African Union force (UNAMID) was inefficient.

"I would like to be judged, for UNAMID to be judged, on the number of deaths in Darfur," since the force's deployment there in 2008, said Adada. "That's how we should be judged."

snip

In October, Agwai said that mistakes by the international community have prolonged the conflict and that there is no immediate prospect for peace.


A year and a half after its deployment, the peacekeeping mission counts some 18,500 soldiers and policemen, out of the 26,000 mandated by the UN Security Council. The force still lacks military helicopters, hampering its ability to patrol a region the size of France.

Is France to blame?

snip

Many of the rebels enjoy direct and indirect foreign support that helped fuel the conflict, with some critics pointing the finger at France, which has a military presence in neighbouring Chad – also accused of arming the Sudanese rebels. France had been accused of involvement in the genocide in Rwanda, but Paris denied responsibility, conceding only that ‘political’ errors were made.